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Did Mugabe's regime fake pictures of the Archbishop 'caught in flagrante'?
The Times (UK)
July 17, 2007

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2092803.ece

Zimbabwe's opposition was in shock today after one of President Mugabe's most outspoken opponents, Archbishop Pius Ncube, was pictured by state media apparently naked and with a woman.

In what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated sting, the cleric was shown undressing with the woman in photographs presumed to be taken by a secret camera installed in his bedroom.

Nine pictures were spread across a page in The Chronicle, the Government's mouthpiece in the western city of Bulawayo, where the Archbishop is based.

The only photographs indisputably of the Archbishop picture him alone. Others are blurred, and one, allegedly of him standing naked, does not appear to resemble him at all.

It was served by the deputy sheriff of Bulawayo, accompanied by a posse of journalists and photographers from the government media.

Mr Ncube's lawyer has described the case as an "orchestrated attempt" to embarrass him and that the Archbishop would deny the charges.

Mr Ncube, 61, has won huge respect internationally for his vociferous condemnation of human rights abuses under Mr Mugabe, despite constant harassment by government secret agents, who at least once have threatened his aged mother. Friends have feared for his life.

He regularly denounced Mr Mugabe as "an evil and corrupt dictator," remarks that could have had him imprisoned. He said he prayed for Mr Mugabe, 83, to die, as the only way to end the tyranny.

He was increasingly looked to as Zimbabwe's version of the South African Nobel laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the only person able to rouse Zimbabweans and lead them to confront the regime. In March he declared he was ready to march "in front of the blazing guns."

State television filmed the Archbishop saying on Monday when the lawsuit was served on him: "We all have weaknesses. That's why when we pray we ask God for forgiveness." He was unavailable for comment today.

Fr Frederick Chiromba, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishop's Conference, said that a decision whether to issue a statement would be taken when the president of the Conference, Archbishop Robert Ndlovu of Harare, returned from a retreat.

Observers said the pictures echoed an attempt by Mr Mugabe's secret police to entrap opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in 2003. They secretly videoed him at a meeting where hired agents tried to lure him into making treasonous statements. The judge in his two-year treason trial found that the film presented as evidence had been doctored.

"Even if the pictures haven't been digitally altered, which could have been the case, it was clearly a CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation, Zimbabwe's state security body) sting operation," said David Coltart, an opposition MP and close friend of the archbishop.

"It was designed to silence the foremost critic of this regime. They have not been able to silence him using any other means, they know they can't kill him or detain him. So they think they can silence him by embarrassing him."

The state press published the story at length, under the headline "Pius Ncube shamed." Lawyers said even if the allegations were correct, there were doubts an affair would have been adulterous.

Rosemary Sibanda, the woman in the alleged relationship, was quoted as saying she began to visit the Archbishop at his residence two years ago, after her husband had separated from her and married another woman. She said they would have sex "once every three or four months".

Mr Coltart asked: "In the context of what is going on in Zimbabwe now, what is worse: a leader committing genocide against his own people, or a person who has had some moments of weakness? On the scale of sins, especially in this country, this comes pretty low."

"This is hypocrisy in the extreme," said Mr Coltart. "The head of state stole his secretary from another man, was engaged in an adulterous relationship, in a country with one of the highest incidence of AIDS in the world, while his wife was dying.

"My respect for Pius is undiminished."

Mr Mugabe married his secretary, Grace Marufu, about 35 years his junior, in 1996 after a lengthy affair while his Ghanaian-born wife, Sally suffered a kidney disease that proved fatal. The President had to be granted a special papal dispensation to be able to marry Mrs Marufu.

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